AS a resident of Hereford City I am writing to you in the hope that you will bring attention of council issues relating to street cleaning and the May Fair.

I would guess I am probably one of the few residents of High Town living in very close proximity to the Old House (above Starbucks). This close proximity affords me a most peculiar insight into the various machinations of Hereford Jarvis street cleaning methodology and also the alarming environmental implications of the May Fair.

While we live in a planning policy culture that encourages living above the shop floor' I can't help but feel this is incongruous with other council department directives and licensed activity, which positively prevents such living above the shop floor. I will explain thus: I am awoken every late evening and again in the small hours of the night by a diesel-powered street cleaner at 3.20am lasting for 20 minutes. It returns at 6am and then again at 9am. The operative with the diesel-powered leaf-blower also frequents.

With regard to May Fair, this activity is most alarming and I demand an inquiry.

I returned to my sleeping quarters only to find that it was filled with noxious off-gases from the flu to the diesel generator powering the fair.

The generator was literally just below my window (my window was not open, it is a sliding sash within a listed building).

I was so convinced that I would fall asleep never to awake, that I spent the night in another part of the house and did not sleep at all.

This I am sure you will concur is not an appropriate or cordial use of the city centre and is certainly not how Hereford should encourage people to inhabit this city and live above the shop floor.

I have taken the liberty of sending this letter to the City Partnership, Herefordshire Council Jarvis Services, Environmental Health and Trading Standards and Clerk to the City Council.

JOVAN MANIC-SMETANJUK, Hereford